In relatively recent
history, there has been Henry Kissinger (1973)
architect supreme of murderous assaults on sovereign
nations;
the
United Nations
(2001) whose active warmongering or passive,
silent holocausts (think UN embargoes) make shameful
mockery of the aspirational founding words.

In 2002 it was
Jimmy Carter, whose poisonous "Carter
Doctrine" of 1980 included declaring the aim of American control
of the Persian Gulf as a "US vital interest", justified "by any means
necessary."

2005 saw the
Award go to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which promotes
nuclear energy, creating the most lethal pollutants to which the planet and
its population has ever been subjected.

The nuclear waste from the industry the IAEA
promotes, is now turned in to "conventional", but never the less, nuclear
and chemical weapons, by a sleight of hand of astonishing historical
proportions.

Barack
Obama (2009)
has since declared himself executioner, by assassination in any form, any
time, any place, anywhere, of anyone deemed by him (not judge or jury)
connected to that now catch all phrase "terrorism" - half a world away.

The Guantanamo concentration camp to which he
unequivocally committed closing (17th November 2008,"60
Minutes") asserting:

"I have said repeatedly that I will close
Guantanamo and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly
that America does not torture. And I’m going to make sure that we don’t
torture… those are part and parcel of an effort to… regain America’s
moral stature in the world."

Gulag Guantanamo remains with its prisoners,
pathetic, desperate untried, or those ordered released, languishing year
after year.

America’s "moral stature" has plummeted lower
than the Nixon years, Libya lies in ruins, Syria barely survives, with the
terrorists’ backers aided via Washington’s myriad back doors - and in global
outposts, US backed or instigated torture thrives.

2012’s
Nobel lauded the European Union, which,
since its inception, has crippled smaller trading economies, put barriers,
unattainable conditions, or indeed, near extortion on trade with poorer
countries (often former colonies.)

EU Member States have also enjoined punitive
embargoes against the most helpless of nations and enthusiastically embraced
the latest nation target to be reduced to a pre-industrial age (correction:
be freed to embrace democracy and the delights of rule by imposed despots,
or a long, murderous, unaccountable foreign occupation and asset seizure.)

Eminent International Law Expert, Professor
Francis Boyle, called the EU Award:

"A sick joke and a demented fraud."

This year’s Peace Prize awarded, on Friday, 11th
October, went to the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW)
the Netherlands based organization, founded only in 1997, unheard of by
most, charged with ridding the world of chemical weapons.

The Award came ten days after an OPCW team
arrived in Syria to eliminate the country’s chemical weapons stock. A brief
visit in August had them scuttling out, an apparent courage free entity,
within days.

President Assad had requested their
investigations back in March, after it was claimed terrorist factions had
used chemical weapons - insurgents now believed to be from some eighty three
countries, backed primarily by the US, UK, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The OPCW’s return, on 1st
October, is now touted as a breakthrough with an intransigent regime who had
previously blocked them at every turn - rather than had the door open for
them since March - the team, now billed as brave souls, working in a war
zone - in which the Syrian people and government live - and die - every day
- in a blood-soaked insurgency of that that famed "international
community’s" making.

Is the annual Nobel justified anyway to an
organization which has, in spite of the nightmare hazards to an entire
population, agree to destroying an alleged 1,000 tons of highly dangerous
chemicals (if we believe what we are told) in just months?

In context, the US still has over three times as
much chemical weaponry (estimated at over 3,100 tons) and has defied the
specified April 2012 deadline for their disposal, on the basis that the
dangers are so great that they cannot complete building the appropriate
facilities until 2020 (some reports state 2023.)

For the same reasons of technical and safety
obstacles, Russia has a believed five times the US amount left to destroy.
(i)

Shameful double standards rule supreme.

Wade Mathews, who worked on the U.S.
chemical stockpile destruction, is uncertain that Syria can meet the
deadline.

He states that the U.S. disposal took billions
of dollars, the cooperation of many levels of government - including the
military - and a safe environment, to make sure the destruction was safely
executed. (i)

To the observer, it would seems that the OPCW
has taken on a high profile, rushed, reckless enterprise, under pressure
from the US/UN, which could potentially poison Syria’s people and
environment in orders of magnitude beyond the alleged horrors unleashed by,
near certainly, the insurgents.

So what possible reason for the OCPW Nobel, and
why now?

Interestingly, OPCW Director-General, Ahmet
Üzümcü, is Turkish, a former Consul in Syria’s Aleppo, former Ambassador
to Israel, a former Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO and then to
the UN in Geneva.

Apart from Director General Üzümcü obviously
having some remarkably useful inside tracks, Syria’s neighbor, Turkey is the
sole Middle East NATO Member State (never mind it has no connection to the
North Atlantic, being set amid the Mediterranean, Aegean, Black Sea, Sea of
Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.)

NATO is certainly not asleep at the wheel when
it comes to Syria, as neither are the European Union, which Turkey - in
spite of being "Gateway to the Orient" with the majority of the country in
it - also aspires to be a Member.

Britain and France are, of course EU Members,
joined as one with Turkey in meddling
in Syria.

NATO, has long sought footholds further east. In
an enlightening letter quoted over the years in these columns, but worthy of
revisiting, on 26th June 1979, General Alexander Hague, on his retirement as
NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, wrote to the then Secretary
General, Joseph Luns.

The focus then, of course, was in the context of
the Cold War, however the regional geography and the diplomatic skills of
President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov in the Syria
crisis make the tactics outlined again starkly relevant, especially as
President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have arguably been
diplomatically eclipsed to near irrelevance.

The US-EU-NATO aspirations for the
Baghdad-Damascus road to lead to Tehran (diplomatic "break through" or not)
should never be under estimated.

Neither indeed, as has been demonstrated since
the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the desire to encircle Russia as confirmed
by encroachment of US-NATO bases at astonishing speed and with equal
chutzpah.(ii)

The tactics in the NATO letter are arguably as
relevant to aims today as when it was written, albeit, targets,
circumstances, field of play (or planned war) widened.

The penultimate paragraphs read:

"We should constantly bear in mind the necessity
of continuously directing attention to the … threat and of further
activising our collaboration with the mass media.

"If argument, persuasion and impacting the media
fail, we are left with no alternative but to jolt the faint hearted in
Europe through the creations of situations, country by country, as deemed
necessary, to convince them where their interests lie.

"The course of actions which we have in mind may
become the only sure way of securing the interests of the West."

Back to the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. Norwegian
Fredrik Heffermehl, jurist, writer, translator, former Vice President of
the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, amongst
numerous other prestigious international appointments, has long been a thorn
in the side of the Norway based Nobel Committee.(iii)

Heffermehl has argued in his published study:
"The Nobel Peace Prize - What Nobel Really Wanted", that the Norwegian
Parliament had distorted Alfred Nobel’s intention for the Prize.

His researches found numerous academic studies
that supported his thesis. The Norwegian Parliament and the Nobel Committee
emphatically did not.

His dissertation, however has been published and
expanded in Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, Russian and in December 2011 was
endorsed by Michael Nobel, of the Nobel Family Association,
who supported Heffermehl in his assertion that on their present course,
Norwegian politicians might lose their control of the Peace Prize.

Norway is, of course is in the NATO "family."
Interesting is the criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

The Nobel website stipulates:

"Deadline for submission. The Committee bases
its assessment on nominations that must be postmarked no later than 1st
February each year…

In recent years, the Committee has received
close to 200 different nominations for different nominees for the Nobel
Peace Prize. The number of nominating letters is much higher, as many are
for the same candidates."

So who, in the year to 1st February 2013 rushed
to nominate the near unheard of OPCW? And is it conceivable there might have
been some accommodation with the date (heaven forbid.)

Well, unless you are very young, you may never
know, there is a while to wait:

"The names of the nominees and other
information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years
later", states the Nobel website.

It might be worth noting the rotating Members of
the Executive Council for the OPCW for 2012-2013 include countries which
have done more than a little meddling in the affairs of Syria, including
France, the UK and US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Norway is also on the year’s
Council.

Britain’s Foreign Office Minister, Hugh
Robertson, sent enthusiastic congratulations to the OPCW on their Award,
adding:

" The UK is providing an initial contribution
£2million to support the work of the OPCW in Syria and we stand ready to
provide further assistance." (iv)

Robertson also lauds the OPCW, referring to:

"The recent use of chemical weapons by the
regime in Syria…" an entirely unproven and arguably, even libelous
allegation.

Speculation, however, as to how another
surprising Nobel Peace Prize came about is vacuous. In fifty years though,
it is worth a bet that honest historians will be shaking their heads in
disbelief.

Another Nobel, another farce.

Oh, and should you have missed:
Monsanto and Syngenta, this same
month, won the World Food Prize - dubbed the "Nobel Prize for
Agriculture." (v)